Monday, August 31, 2015

The fun continues
with Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals line
of powdered dye inks. These are gorgeous
dye inks that have been dried into powder form.The background on this one used two of them . . .

After smearing on
some Distress inks and a yellow Gelato, I wet the cardstock and immediately
used a small dry brush to pick up a little of the powder and tap it on. Patterns form and you can leave them this way
or brush them around to distribute the color.
The color intensity can be light or saturated, depending on how much
water you use. You can brush the water
on first, or you can spray mist afterwards.
Either way, you'll probably never have a failure with these lovely
powders!

Thursday, August 27, 2015

During one of Tim
Holtz' fabulous online Creative Chemistry Classes, we happy students
experimented with coloring directly on the stamp with Distress markers.After huffing to re-moisten the ink, I
stamped the image and then heat-dried it.When dry, I sponged over the whole design with Antique Linen, and then
spritzed with water . . .

It was a great start,
but I wanted more droplets and visual texture in the background, so I smooshed
the Antique Linen pad on my craft sheet, spritzed again, and then dipped the
card front into the droplets several times, heat-drying between each
application. This has to be my favorite
technique for creating beautiful backgrounds with gorgeous variations in color. Even though you never know what you're going
to get, it always works! I really think that failure just isn't
possible with this technique . . . try it!

Thursday, August 20, 2015

This card started out
well, became a real puzzle midway through, and then wound up teaching me a few
things . . .

The hang-up was
with the background: I had it placed so
that the lighter part was at the top and the darker at the bottom. It didn't work and sat on my worktable for 5
days until it occurred to me to switch the orientation. Such a little change and yet it made all the
difference.

As for the
herringbone pattern, that technique was a wonderful discovery I first saw on Splitcoast
Stampers. The original demo artist used
Distress inks for this technique, but artist Dina Kowal used Gelatos
instead. I decided to do the same: I scribbled with the Gelatos on the back of
my stencil, misted with water, and laid down my watercolor cardstock on
top. Rather than blot up the excess, I
heat-dried in order to preserve the lovely variations in color. So simple, and so beautiful!

Monday, August 17, 2015

. . . it's still on the dark side, and the
feathers and fronds are hard to see. I
was having such a good time with the coloring that I got a little carried away
and lost some needed contrast. Next
time, I'll look ahead and call a halt a little sooner . . .

Thursday, August 13, 2015

More and more,
lately, I find myself working with #90 watercolor paper . . .

. . . it adds
a lovely weight and texture, is a very gentle white color that works with many
themes, it folds without cracking, die cuts beautifully, and can even stand in
as a sturdy card base. It's also a very
economical choice . . . try it!

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Once in awhile, to
heck with whether or not it's easy to mail!I just love making rolled flowers (or using some that were already made,
as I did here) and have decided that they're worth the extra postage.

The fun of this card
comes from the fact that the colored oval layer was an un-recoverable disaster. A mish mash of messy colors made it a sure
candidate for the wastebasket. However, I
used a stamp with an all-over image and white-embossed it over the smeary
colors.

Monday, August 3, 2015

My
current two favorite design elements to use are stripes and any die with
stitching on it!This card uses a goodly
amount of both . . .

The leaves were colored with Copics which
used to give me pause. Their highly
touted blending capabilities never came true for me. That is, until I learned that I could stroke
on the Copic Blender Pen first, then add
my colors, and actually get a great blend with no hard lines to bedevil
me. I got so inspired by the smooth
results I was finally able to achieve that I wrote an article on the simple
procedure and it will appear in this year's Holiday issue of Rubber Stamp
Madness. Do please watch for it!

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About Me

In 2000, I picked up a magazine with a funny name: RubberStampMadness. "What on earth is this?" I wondered, and began thumbing through it. By page 5, I had heart palpitations, was seriously hooked a few pages later, and have been happily addicted ever since. I am a retired TWA flight attendant and have stayed busy with several pursuits, but am happiest when I'm stamping. As a resident in the wilds of North NJ, we've got plenty of bears to deal with, but next to no stamping stores to play in. Hopefully, someone will recognize an opportunity and spring to our rescue. Meanwhile, I plan to stay connected to the stamping world at large via my blog. Welcome to my world - please do come in!
~~Full Disclosure:
Currently, I have no commercial interests and am receiving zip in the way of payments, products, services, fame or fortune from any of the companies who manufacture the products I recommend. When I am enthusiastic about a tool or other stamping-related product, I love passing along my happy experiences with it to my readers. However, blogging can open up new opportunities: should I become interested in participating remuneratively, you will find out about it here first.